


first impressions

by iovewords



Category: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Humor, Meet Messy, Neighbors AU, Peter is a human disaster (as per usual)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:47:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27534766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iovewords/pseuds/iovewords
Summary: “HEY!” Peter yelps.The girl pauses, thumb and pointer finger pinching the waistband of a pair of his boxers (oh god), and slowly turns to look at him.“Oh,” she says, deadpan. “Is this yours?”---Or: Peter's first meeting with his new neighbor does not go well, but he eventually makes it up to her.
Relationships: Michelle Jones/Peter Parker
Comments: 32
Kudos: 109





	first impressions

**Author's Note:**

> For Spideychelle Bingo: Meet-Messy.

All things considered, Peter’s new apartment is not that bad. Is it the size of a shoebox? Sure. Do both the bathroom and kitchen sink faucets leak? Sometimes. Are there questionable stains on the ceiling and floors? Maybe. Though Peter isn’t one to judge considering his history of bleeding all over every place he’s lived in. But it’s affordable. Ish. As long as he’s careful budgeting his measly lab assistant paycheck and limits how much take-out he orders.

The important thing is he’s living alone, which means he won’t have to deal with hiding his superhero double life from suspecting roommates. It would have been easier if he could continue living with Ned after their lease was up, but then he and Betty decided to take the next step in their relationship and move in together. And who was Peter to interfere with their domestic bliss? Anyway, he’s relieved he won’t have to sneak around and lie to anyone, because after doing that to his aunt for two and a half years in high school, he had exhausted all believable excuses, not to mention his planet-sized guilt complex.

There is a nice thing about his apartment though: the living room window. It’s big and faces a solid brick wall instead of out toward the street, which would be a disappointment to literally anyone else, except it reduces the chance of being noticed by passersby when he’s slipping in and out for patrol.

So yeah. All in all, the place isn’t bad. Granted he’s only been here for a little over a week, and there’s always a chance he’ll get cockroaches, or a pipe will burst, or the landlord will sell the building, or one of his neighbors will turn out to be a HYDRA sleeper agent.

But maybe not. Maybe his Parker Luck will cut him some slack for once in his life.

* * *

It’s Saturday morning, and Peter is wiped after an all nighter of fighting mutant lizards. He would like nothing more than to crawl under his covers and sleep for 36 straight hours, but he desperately needs to do laundry. Namely his suit, which has been smelling so rank lately that even the lizard-man in the sewer commented on it. Yeesh.

Peter carries his basket of clothes down to the basement laundry room (suit buried just in case he runs into any people on the way). A few machines are running but the room itself is thankfully empty. There’s certainly a risk to washing the suit in a communal space, but he thinks he’s safe as long as it’s mixed in with his other clothes.

He suspects that weekends are the busiest times, so he’s glad he got here bright and early, even though he’s dead on his feet and can barely think straight enough to sort his darks and whites. Screw it, he’ll do them together. It’s cheaper and faster to do one load instead of two. And if he ends up with pink gym socks, so be it. Pink socks are cute.

Peter loads the washing machine, eyeballs a cup of detergent, and trudges back to his room yawning all the while. And here is where the crucial mistake happens.

See, living in a dorm in college, Peter became well acquainted with basic laundry room etiquette. Get your clothes promptly when your machine is done so others can use them. Never engage in asshole behavior like removing someone’s load midway through and stealing the cycle they paid for. College students are vicious, vengeful creatures and several times he got a front row seat to watching clothes get dumped on the dirty floor, drenched with bleach, or scattered outside in the bushes. Peter moonlights as a vigilante, so he’s in hard agreement that petty laundry revenge is properly delivered justice.

What happens is Peter forgets to set a timer on his phone. As soon as he gets back to his room, he sinks down onto his bed and lays back to rest his eyes. Just for a moment.

Two and a half hours later he wakes up to his spider-sense buzzing like the world’s most unnatural grating alarm clock. His eyes snap open and he shoots up, the realization slamming his heart in his chest.

“Shit.”

It’s already bad that he left his laundry long past the time the cycle was done, which is sure to piss off his new neighbors. But his suit is in there. What if someone goes through his clothes and sees it? He should have never left it unattended. What was he thinking?

Peter tears out of his apartment and down the hall, taking the stairs four at a time and practically catapulting over the banisters on every level. He arrives at the laundry room and bursts through the front door, and sure enough there’s someone standing at his washing machine, the only one not currently running. She’s pulling damp clothing out one by one in excruciating slow motion (or maybe that’s just how his horrified brain is interpreting the scene) and piling them on top of the washer beside her. He can’t see any red or blue in the pile yet, but she certainly will any second now.

“HEY!” Peter yelps.

The girl pauses, thumb and pointer finger pinching the waistband of a pair of his boxers (oh god), and slowly turns to look at him.

“Oh,” she says, deadpan. “Is this yours?”

There’s a hint of a challenge in her eyes, like she’s daring him to have the audacity to be outraged at her for removing his belongings after he abandoned them well beyond the universally acceptable laundry time limit. Well of course he isn’t. She is one hundred percent well within her right.

Doesn’t mean he’s not freaking out though.

Peter gapes wordlessly at her, and she snorts and drops his underwear onto the pile. Somehow through the mortified and panicked thought salad jumbled around in his metaphorical salad spinner brain, he notices that she’s kind of pretty.

Really pretty.

“You know, most phones have an alarm feature so you can keep track of the time,” the girl says, and to his confused dismay, goes right back to pulling out his wet laundry. “Or you could be old fashioned and use a watch. Maybe get a Fitbit if you’re feeling inspired to keep track of your step count.”

Peter finds his voice, face and ears burning in embarrassment. “I’m so sorry! I use alarms- I always use them, but I didn’t sleep last night so I wasn’t thinking and forgot to set one this time. And then I fell asleep when I went back to my apartment and didn’t wake up until just now. I swear, I don’t normally do this.”

The girl ignores him, pulls out a Yoda patterned sock and peers at it closely. Her mouth twitches into a wry smile. “Cute.”

He takes a step forward. “I can take it from here and get out of your way. You don’t have to-”

“Oh no, it’s okay,” she says, voice saccharine, and reaches back into the drum of the washing machine to grab the next article of clothing. “Going through a stranger’s wet undergarments has always been a fantasy of mine. By the way, I can’t believe how many nerdy t-shirts you own.”

Peter chuckles nervously. “Yeah I collect them… But seriously, I’d appreciate it if you’d let me get my stuff.”

“And _I_ would appreciate it if you were considerate about getting them on time.” Her voice is cool now, no longer trying to disguise her irritation, and he can’t blame her one bit. “There’s a limited number of machines here and I waited twenty minutes for you to return.”

He nods and clears his throat, properly chagrined. “I know and I’m really sorry. I-”

But then he freezes again, when he sees what she’s grabbed next. The red spandex arm stretches as she pulls the suit out, and it hangs limply in her hands as she stares down at it.

“Huh,” she says, flatly.

“Huh,” Peter echos, trying to keep his heart rate under control. Shit shit shit.

The girl raises her arms to hold it out in front of her so she can better examine the emblem on the chest. Her eyebrows furrow as she stares at the suit, then flit to Peter’s deer in the headlights expression.

Apart from the rumbling of the washers and dryers throughout the room, it’s quiet. Peter holds his breath, stomach twisting in knots as he waits for her to say something.

“Big fan?” she asks finally.

Peter blinks, taking a second to catch on. “What? Oh yeah. He’s a cool guy, Spider-Man. Solid dude. Huge fan.”

“Clearly since you’re washing a costume and it’s nowhere close to Halloween,” she smirks.

He smiles weakly back. “Comic Con?”

“Is that a question?” She’s fully grinning now, and it’s bright. Teasing.

“No! No, I go to Comic Con. Since you know,” he points two thumbs at his chest. “Huge nerd. And I sometimes wear it for other uh, _special occasions_ ,” he blurts out, then mentally slaps his forehead. That sounds like he wears it in the bedroom, and judging by the raise of her eyebrows, that’s exactly where her mind went as well.

“Hey, no judgment here,” she says, moving to drop the suit on the pile, then pauses, and holds it out to him instead.

“Thanks,” he mutters, fumbling, before taking it from her and shuffling to the washing machine beside her to scoop up the pile of clothing she took out for him. He moves the rest of his clothes to an open dryer while she attends to her own laundry, neither of them speaking. Peter feels like jumping out of his skin and wants to flee the room as quickly as humanly possible. He’s thankful she now seems more amused than annoyed.

He finishes loading his laundry before her, and holds the door for her as she’s walking behind him, basket under one arm.

“Thanks,” she says, brushing an errant curl out of her face. Her hair is so pretty. She’s so pretty. If he hadn’t made a complete ass of himself in their first meeting, he would be over the moon that such a beautiful cool girl lives in the same building as him. But in typical Parker fashion, his first impression was embarrassing garbage, and so he hopes he never has to show his face to her again. Hopefully she lives on another floor very far away. Maybe he can start taking his laundry to the nearby laundromat. It costs about the same anyway.

They make their way up the stairs, Peter awkwardly following at a loose distance, praying that she’ll head through one of the doors at each floor level. But no, she keeps going, and his heart sinks as they reach the fifth and final floor- his floor- and he has no choice but to keep trudging behind her. She doesn’t turn around, but she can obviously hear him behind her. He wonders with a lurch in his stomach if she thinks he’s a creep, when it’s really just a coincidence that they live on the same stupid floor.

_Please live at the end of the hall. Please live at the end of the hall._

She doesn’t. She walks, nearing closer and closer to his apartment door, and he silently groans when she stops at the door beside it. Digging her key out of the back pocket of her jeans, she looks over her shoulder at him where he’s quickly fumbling in his own pockets for his keys to prove that he lives there too.

“Well,” she drawls, with the most shit eating grin on her face. “It was nice meeting you, neighbor.”

Peter wishes the floor would open up and swallow him whole, or that he was being punched in the face by the lizard-man again. Why is this his life?

With a loud snort, his next door neighbor opens her door and disappears inside, curly hair bouncing behind her.

* * *

“You’re an idiot, you know that?” Ned says as soon as Peter opens his door and hurries him inside, glancing furtively out into the hall before shutting the door.

“In the general sense, yes, I’m aware,” Peter agrees easily, spinning on his heel and heading toward his kitchen. “Beer?”

“Thanks.”

They had come back from dinner at a nearby pizza joint, deciding to continue their hangout at Peter’s place with an evening video game session. Normally around this time Peter would be suiting up to go on evening patrol, but it had been ages since they’d hung out thanks to Peter’s hectic double life and Ned being so loved up with “his boo” (his words) at the Brant-Leeds Abode.

When they arrived at Peter’s building, Peter told Ned to head upstairs and he would meet him there and let him in.

Ned stared at him for a moment. “You’re serious.”

“Yeah. What’s the big deal? I’ll even beat you there.”

“But you’re being ridiculous.”

Peter crossed his arms. “Am not. See you in two minutes.”

“Peter…”

But Peter was already jogging away to the side of the building, slipping into the alleyway and glancing around, spider-sense at the ready to alert him to any curious eyes looking in his direction. The coast was clear, and he scuttled up the brick wall to his window, sliding it open and climbing inside. It took a few minutes for Ned to arrive looking out of breath (Peter did live on the fifth floor of a walkup).

He grabs two beers from the fridge and meets Ned in his cramped living room, collapsing onto the couch beside him and handing him his drink.

“I didn’t see her, by the way,” Ned says, cracking open the can and taking a swig. “So you had nothing to worry about.”

Peter scoffs, toeing off his shoes and getting comfortable on the beat up cushions. “I wasn’t worried.”

Ned looks exasperated. “Oh really? So then why aren’t you using your front door? You’d really rather risk your secret identity, crawling in and out of your fifth story window in broad daylight, just to avoid running into a pretty girl?”

Peter scowls, defensive. “Okay first of all, I’m not risking my identity. I know how to be careful-”

“Like the time in high school when I found out you were Spider-Man?”

“Shut up. Second, what’s wrong with using the window? I already use it for patrol. Now I’m just doing it a bit more often. No big deal.”

Ned rolls his eyes.

“And third,” Peter continues, keeping his voice casual, though he knows Ned can see straight through his bullshit. “Who said she was pretty?” He takes a long sip, avoiding Ned’s eye.

“You, dude. It was the first thing you said when you texted me what happened.”

Of course Ned’s right. Peter most certainly did, and he’s got the text receipts to prove it. He’s well aware he’s being cowardly and ridiculous, but admitting he’s afraid of running into her is humiliating.

“Okay fine,” he concedes with a sigh, setting his beer down onto the coffee table (with a coaster, because Aunt May raised him well). “I’m avoiding her. But it’s so awkward, man. She touched my underwear. She thinks I cosplay as Spider-Man. For like, sexual roleplay.”

Ned barks out a laugh, covering his mouth with the back of his hand as Peter shoots him a glare. “Sorry. Sorry, but that’s kind of funny. And I mean, at least she doesn’t think you’re the real deal? Your secret’s safe.”

“At the expense of my pride.”

Ned pats his shoulder sympathetically, and then they lapse into a silence, sipping their drinks.

Peter’s gaze slides from his friend’s face to the off-white wall that separates his apartment from his next door neighbor. It’s such a twist of irony that the girl he’s hiding from lives so close, just a wall away. She could be home right now- not that he’s listening in. Peter is serious about tuning out the private lives of his neighbors. Though sometimes when he’s really tired and unfocused, his super hearing betrays him and picks up on her humming along to old school R&B and show tunes.

“How long are you going to keep this up?” Ned asks, but from the look on his face, he already knows Peter’s answer.

“Indefinitely. Until one of us moves out. Which will probably be me.”

* * *

Peter wakes to the sound of loud knocking on his front door. Blearily, he rolls out of bed and makes his way down the hall. It’s a Saturday morning again, and last night’s patrol was shockingly uneventful so he turned in early, pleased about his golden opportunity to catch up on sleep and stay in bed all morning.

Oh well.

Because Peter is half asleep, he’s not thinking clearly about his Front Door Avoidance policy, which is quite simple: avoid the front door at all costs, unless it’s to receive packages (rare) or speak to the landlord (hasn’t happened yet, thankfully, because speaking to the landlord is never a good thing). It’s been a relatively solid system so far, since he really only goes to work, patrol, and Aunt May’s apartment for Sunday dinners per their twice a month arrangement.

Peter opens the door and is completely and wholly unprepared to find himself face to face with the girl he’s been adamantly avoiding for several weeks now. His brain short circuits.

She’s wearing plaid pajama pants and has her hair down, soft and curling over her shoulders. His heart does a little flip flop in his chest. In her arms is a gray squirming cat.

“Uh hi,” says Peter, blinking. Well, now he’s wide awake. He’s painfully aware that he has bedhead and is wearing one of his stupid nerdy science shirts and ratty sweatpants.

“Hi. I need your help,” she says, bluntly.

It’s vague, and he doesn’t know what kind of help she’s about to request from him, but he’s already on board. Helping people is his very purpose in life. He’s Friendly _Neighborhood_ Spider-Man, and she’s a neighbor in need.

“Sure, of course!” Peter says, leaning against the door jamb, stomach still fluttering nervously. “What’s the problem?”

She sighs, and he notices a hint of a blush to her cheeks. “I’m locked out.”

This is a surprise. He knows everyone makes mistakes, but she didn’t strike him as the type to carelessly forget her keys inside. In their first meeting, she seemed so cool and collected, while he in contrast was like a flailing pigeon stuck in rapidly drying cement.

“Oh,” Peter says after a moment. “I’m sorry. What happened?”

She glares down at the wriggling animal in her arms. “Monsieur Asshole here tried to pull an escape attempt. He’s been trying to get out for weeks. I tried sneaking out to get my mail but he slipped through the crack in the door, and in my scramble to grab him I… dropped my keys. They’re right on the other side of my door.”

“Shit. What can I do?”

“I left my phone inside. Can I borrow yours to call the landlord?”

“Yeah of course. One sec.” Peter closes the door and jogs back to his room to grab his phone off his nightstand where it’s been charging overnight. He also picks up his own keys, hyper aware now of how easy it is to lock them inside. When he comes back out, he finds his neighbor fondly scolding her cat, who purrs innocently and softly bats at her chin with his paw.

“I raised you better than this, you little hellion. Have you no respect for your mother?”

“Here you go,” Peter pulls up the landlord’s contact and hands her his phone. She gives him a tight, embarrassed smile, shifting to move the cat securely under one arm while she takes the phone with her free hand. Their fingers brush and Peter feels a little jolt of electricity that goes straight to his dumb romantic heart.

She walks over to her door to create some space between them as she calls and explains the situation to the landlord. Peter catches her name (Michelle), and frowns as her expression and voice become increasingly worried.

“Oh... Yeah, if that’s the soonest you can send someone. Okay. Thank you. Bye.” She hangs up and exhales deeply, scrunching her face in frustration.

Peter approaches hesitantly. “Everything okay?”

Michelle opens her eyes to meet his, biting her lip as she returns his phone and rearranges Monsieur Asshole (that can’t really be its name, can it?) in her arms. “Yeah. No. He said the maintenance guy can’t come until ten, and I have somewhere to be at nine. Goddammit.”

“I’m sorry,” Peter says, wincing. “Is there anything I can do?”

“I’d consider asking you to watch my cat while I’m gone, but I’m not even dressed and I don’t have my wallet or phone.”

She paces anxiously in front of him. Peter wants so much to help her and save the day, but he’s at a loss of what to do. By which he means non-Spider-Man related solutions that won’t compromise his secret identity. Sometimes solving everyday problems is more challenging than big displays of heroism like webbing up armed robbers and dragging people out of burning cars.

“Unless…” Michelle muses out loud. She looks over at him, a thoughtful look on her face. “We pick the lock. You got any tools?”

“I can check,” Peter replies, glad to still be useful. He heads back inside a second time to his whirlwind of a desk. He’s got a sizable toolkit for fixing his web shooters, yet not the exact tool he’d need for lock picking, so a simple paperclip is actually a safer bet. Also, the locks on the apartment doors look old and he’s worried about breaking them.

He returns, holding up a paperclip with a flourish and asks if she wants to do the honors or let him.

“I’ll do it,” she says, stepping forward. “Can you hold Poe for me?”

“Poe? So his name isn’t actually Monsieur Asshole?”

She laughs. “Only when he’s naughty. Thanks...”

“Peter,” he fills in. He takes the recalcitrant feline in his arms, and to his surprise, Poe settles down, nuzzling his fluffy head into the crook of Peter’s neck.

Michelle blinks. “Huh. He likes you. He never warms up to people.”

“Guess I’m a cat whisperer.”

It’s kind of true actually. The several times he’s literally rescued cats stuck in trees, they’ve always liked him, snuggling against his chest before being handed back to their owners’ waiting arms.

Michelle takes the paperclip and sets to work, bending it into the proper shape and wiggling it into the lock on her door with a grit of her teeth. Peter waits patiently, watching her work.

After about five minutes she straightens up in frustration and mutters darkly under her breath.

“Want me to give it a shot?”

She blows a curl of hair out of her face, mouth pursed as she holds out the paper clip. “Have at it.”

He trades her Poe, who looks grumpy he’s being passed around like a human baby, but Michelle says there’s no way in hell she’s putting him down and she doesn’t want to leave him alone in Peter’s apartment lest he claw everything to shreds like the holy terror he is.

Peter has no luck either, and the two of them slump in shared disappointment. The antsy tension is radiating off of her in waves now.

“Maybe I could run to the bodega and see if they sell lock picking kits?” he suggests.

Michelle plucks his phone out of his hand to check the time and curses loudly. “No time.” She hands it back.

“I could run fast.”

She ignores this and asks, “Do you have an axe?”

Peter pauses, raising an eyebrow at her uncertainty. “No? Were you thinking of breaking down the door Jack Torrance style?”

“Desperate times call for desperate measures,” she deadpans. Her gaze lingers on his biceps and he swallows nervously. To be honest, he did think at first about using brute force to get the door open. But if he did, he’d reveal his identity to her, not to mention the rest of their neighbors who would hear the ruckus. And the landlord would be _pissed_. Peter knows the fee for the lock is hefty already, and even if she’s willing to pay, he doesn’t think she should have to go to such expensive dramatic lengths.

“Where do you have to be, if you don’t mind me asking?”

Michelle sinks down on the floor against the wall. Her eyes are downcast as she absently scratches under Poe’s chin, her other hand keeping a firm hold on his belly as he tries to wriggle his way to freedom. “An audition.”

“Singing?”

“Acting. It’s for a production of _A Raisin in the Sun_. You heard of it?”

“I think my aunt’s mentioned it before. She loves theater.”

She tries to smile but it falls flat. “It’s at a little theater off broadway. I was really excited about it.” She looks sad now, and Peter wracks his brains, desperate to think of another way to help. Come on, brain. Come on, Spider-Man. There’s a silence, as he stands in front of her in the little hallway, both of them helpless in their pajamas.

“Do you want to come in-”

“Wait. I just realized my window is unlocked.”

They speak at the same time, and he stops, furrowing his brow. “Come again?”

“My living room window is unlocked. And it’s not far from yours.” She holds his gaze, a bright, inscrutable look in her eyes.

Peter realizes what she's saying, and it takes a second for him to form words. “So you want to… somehow climb from my window to yours? We’re five stories up.”

She shakes her head. “Not me. _You_.”

Now, obviously this is something Peter can do. Easy. But not if he wants his secret identity to stay intact. So he says, “Look, I’ve been happy to help, but what you’re asking is crazy. I can’t climb out a window-”

“Stop playing dumb.”

Peter freezes.

“I know who you are and I’ve seen you do it.” She drops her voice. “ _Spider-Man_.”

It feels like he’s been punched in the gut. “What? _Me_? That’s ridiculous. No, I’m not- what would make you think…?”

“I’ve seen you climbing out your window, idiot,” she says, getting to her feet and cuddling a squirming Poe to her chest. “Also your suit? Remember? Laundry day?”

“That was- that was just a costume!” Peter stammers, feeling like the world has tilted off its axis. “For… sex.”

His mind is sputtering, stunned at the revelation that she’s seen him Spider-Manning and he never noticed. That his foolproof plan to avoid running into her by using his fifth story window as an alternate door ended up backfiring in the most ironic way possible.

Besides Aunt May and Ned (loved ones whom he knew and trusted dearly), Peter’s spider-sense has always, _always_ let him know if someone was watching. So why was she an exception too?

“Look,” Michelle says, breezing straight past his terrible lies and level ten internal crisis. “I don’t care what kind of kinky action you get up to when you’re not fighting killer robots or whatever, but I need your sticky wall crawling skills. Can you help me? Literally all you have to do is climb out your window, go sideways into mine, and unlock my door to let me in. God, why didn’t I think of this before?”

He must look completely horrified, because her determined expression softens. “Please? This audition could be huge for me, and if we hurry I can still make it. I won’t tell anyone.”

“I uh…” Can he still try to deny it? Going through with it would be undeniable proof. And how can he trust her? He may have the beginnings of a crush, but she’s still a near stranger. Oh god. She knows. She knows.

Michelle seems to pick up on his distress. She shifts Poe under one arm, who looks furious that he’s being manhandled yet again, and reaches forward to gently take Peter’s hand in hers. They’ve brushed fingers several times now, and the contact keeps making his heart rate jump. “I know we don’t really know each other, but… I’ve known for a while. And I’ve seen the good you’ve done for this city. I haven’t told anyone, and I’m not planning to. I promise.”

That’s... a good point. If she were going to go to the media, wouldn’t she have done so already? Maybe the reason his spider-sense didn’t pick up on her watching was because it knew she wasn’t a threat. That she was trustworthy. Peter exhales. “Okay.”

“You’ll do it?”

“Yeah.”

“Thank you. Now go, man, go!” She shoos him along and he dashes inside. Less than a minute later he’s opening her door from the inside, triumphantly twirling her key ring around one finger before dropping it in her waiting palm.

“Well done, Spidey,” she stage-whispers, and he brings a finger to his lips. He welcomes her inside (a weird thing since it’s her home, not his), and she makes sure to firmly close the door behind her before dropping Poe to the floor. He rockets straight for her open bedroom, mewling dramatically after his barbaric ordeal. Will he think twice now about trying to escape? Probably not, because he’s a cat.

“It was no trouble,” Peter says, though his brain is still reeling a bit, and he’s feeling increasingly stupid despite having just succeeded in his mission of helping her.

Michelle picks her phone off the counter and fires off a text to the landlord, letting him know to cancel the maintenance request. “I’ve got to get ready,” she says, glancing up at him, shoulders tense with restless energy. “But I’ll think of a way to pay you back.”

“Oh, you don’t have to.”

“I want to.”

“Okay.”

“And we can talk about this if you want,” she adds hastily, waving her hand at the air in between them. “After- when I get back. Because I realize it was really unfair of me to just spring that truthbomb on you like that and then brazenly demand your help.” She winces. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Peter says.

It is. But not in the sense that in the fifteen minutes they spent together his attraction to her has tripled in size (maybe, he realizes, because his perception of her is now more humanized from the cool perfect person he thought she was based on their one brief encounter).

But she doesn’t need to know that. She definitely doesn’t need to know that. He says, “Don’t worry about it. Go! Good luck! You got this!”

“Thanks! I hope! It was nice meeting you. Properly I mean.” She bites her lip and smiles at him and he returns it with a nod.

It’s now his cue to leave and he crosses the room to the open window. It too faces the brick wall of the neighboring building, and he wonders for a second if she hates the view. How many times she’s watched him.

He raises a foot to the windowsill, and pauses, glancing back over his shoulder. She’s turned away now, walking quickly into her bedroom. He swallows, feeling a warm flutter in his chest that stays with him as he makes his way back to his own apartment.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I don't have anything officially planned, but I will probably write a continuation of this at some point.
> 
> Also, if you were wondering, this story is a sort of blend of MCU and comics, so Peter's suit isn't the high tech Stark suit, which is why it's machine washable lol.
> 
> iovewords on tumblr


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